


Right Now

by timetravelingsherlockian



Category: Bill & Ted (Movies)
Genre: (technically) - Freeform, Any non-con happens off-screen, Cannon-Typical Homophobia, Canon Compliant, F/M, M/M, Multi, No Bill/Ted non-con, No Internalized Homophobia though, Prison, Sometimes life is tough, Ted has a hard time dudes, and you have to love each other, bill is a good friend, cops are bastards, f-slur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:35:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27203942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timetravelingsherlockian/pseuds/timetravelingsherlockian
Summary: ““Bogus.”” they said.“Most-heinous,” Ted continued from within the San Dimas Police Department’s spare chasse (their primary prisoner transportation unit having been retired earlier that afternoon).“Positively flagitious.”“I would agree, my most-contemptable colleague.”Ten years. They could do this. Together.---Bill & Ted go to prison. This is what happens while they wait for their younger time-traveling selves.
Relationships: Elizabeth/Ted "Theodore" Logan (mentioned), Elizabeth/Ted "Theodore" Logan/Bill S. Preston Esq./Joanna (implied), Joanna/Bill S. Preston Esq. (mentioned), Ted "Theodore" Logan/Bill S. Preston Esq.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Right Now

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings at the end.
> 
> There's a dearth of B&T other-universe fics, and a couple of scenes from the prison!AU came to mind.
> 
> unbeta'd.

““Bogus.”” Bill & Ted said.

“Most-heinous,” Ted continued from within the San Dimas Police Department’s spare chasse (their primary prisoner transportation unit having been retired earlier that afternoon).

“Positively flagitious.”

“I would agree, my most-contemptable colleague.”

Officer Logan ran over the driveway’s speedbump. Bill slammed against the steel chassis. Ted’s head smashed into the reinforced ceiling.

“Ted.”

“Yeah Bill.”

“You really should stop drinking, dude.”

Officer Logan stopped. We’re at a stoplight, thought Ted. Ted mushed against Bill. Bill rocked back into him. It must have turned green. They trundled along.

“I thought for sure that would work, Ted.”

“Me too.”

Bill scooched up off him a bit.

“I guess other-me didn’t buy it, huh.”

“You were always most-perceptive, Ted.”

Officer Logan hit the breaks again. Through their tiny barred window, Ted thought it looked like a normal stretch of road. He must have just wanted to break, then.

The tiny metal door between them and the drivers that had both a lock on the little door and bars _sh-shink_ ed open. Ted thought both the little metal door and the bars was an awful lot of security. Especially when they were already handcuffed together anyway, and he kinda had a headache from that speedbump and the breaking and the preemptive we-actually-saved-the-world-afterall-and-got-back-with-the-babes celebration party he threw for himself last night. And the couple of preparatory celebratory drinks this morning, just for luck.

Bill must have been feeling the drinks he didn’t have, too. Bill hadn’t moved too much from the last break. Ted could feel the long, wispy hairs that Bill combed over his ever-largening bald spot tickling the edges of his neck.

“Fags!” the other officer riding in the passenger seat that Ted didn’t recognize yelled out.

“C’mon. We used that word in _high-school_ , officer-dude,” Bill mumbled. Ted could feel him tense up, “be excellent or something.”

Ted didn’t say anything. The less you said, he’d known for a while, the less they say back. And his headache was most-cacophonous. Nearly flagitious. Like they were.

His handcuffs _clunk_ ed a bit from their next bump. The roads were really hole-ly here.

“Don’t drop the soap!” the officer yelled again. _Bang! Bang!_ Slammed his fist on the dividing chasse. Right next to Ted’s head.

_Don’t drop the soap,_ Ted thought. That was, he figured, most-sound advice. After all, who knew what would be on floors in prison.

It tried not to occur to him that he and Bill were about to find out.

“Thanks, officer-dude!” he replied (a little voice in his head said: _you should_ not _reply_ ). He smiled, finally some help today, “I will be sure to keep the soap most-polished!”

Officer Logan’s hand slammed across the back of the other officer-dude’s head. “Cut it out! That’s my brother!”

“Your brother’s a f—”

“Cut it out Dougass!”

“And a r—”

“I said shut the fuck up!”

“Fine, jeez. Didn’t know you were such a pansy like your brother, Deac.”

“Whatever, Dug-ass. Do you know where Dad went, Ted?”

“I don’t know.”

“It looked like a laser,” Bill replied.

Officer Logan glanced in the rearview mirror. It was angled just through the tiny barred window.

“What does that mean?”

“Don’t ask them, Deac.”

“Shutup Dog-ass. I’m interrogating the suspects. What does a laser mean, Bill? Where do you think he and the truck went?”

“Idonno. P’bly Hell.”

“Can’t be. Our dad’s in Hell?”

“Yeah. Pretty bogus. And Death’s got a stick up his ass after trying to take over our—”

“—After ‘Those Who Rock.’ I hear enough about it from you two at Christmas.”

“—he sucks balls at Clue, though.”

“If Officer Logan would ever play a board game,” Ted said.

“Or play at all, dude. He treats life most-heinous.”

“Kinda like us, dude,” Ted mumbled.

“Dad never seemed very happy, did he,” Officer Logan mumbled.

“Last time he smiled was probably when you got promoted, little bro.”

They were at a stoplight again. Officer Logan slid up to it quietly.

Bill took the pause to lever himself up off of Ted. Though they were still handcuffed together, so he didn’t go far.

Officer Dougass seemed to find something very interesting in the paved road ahead and the sun-bleached yellow lines.

— — —

“But really, dude,” Officer Logan said as Ted stumbled down the grated steps to get his picture taken, one hand braced over his brother’s hair, “don’t drop the soap.”

The concrete bench was cold below them. At least the officers didn’t see fit to split them up, since they came in together and confessed everything—including the time travel, Hell, Heaven, stealing the jail cell keys from Officer Logan (Sr., Recently Retired) to emancipate Abraham Lincoln and his San Dimas friends from SDPD, and their younger also-trespassing alternate-selves.

“You should arrest them too!” Bill said, as he was getting his fingers rolled in blue-black ink.

“Dude! Don’t say that! They have to go write the song and save themselves from becoming us-es!”

“They abandoned us, dude!”

“We abandoned the other us-es, dude.”

“Okay, boys,” the booking-officer-dude said, letting go of Bill’s wrist, “Head down the hall for your new ‘ _wyld stallyons’_ costumes.”

They heard snickering from behind the official camera.

They started shuffling towards the thin, low doorway. Bill ducked a bit.

“Maybe we deserved to be abandoned, dude.” Ted mumbled as he was shuffled forward.

“Don’t say that, Ted. In fact, Ted,” Bill said as he slipped on his new orange jumper, “I believe we’ve been given a most gilded-opportunity, Ted.”

“What do you mean, Bill?”

“Now, we have unlimited time to write The Song, dude! The other-us-es are bound to jump forward and see if we’ve written The Song then, dude! What if we had??”

“No one to distract us,” Bill continued, sliding up onto his concrete-bottomed bunk, “Just you, and me, and all the free time we could want, dude. Just like before we died that one time, Ted! We won’t even have to stop for shifts at Pretzels and Cheese!”

“D’you think that would work?”

“Most-certainly, Ted. And once we’ve written the song, we can get the Babes back!”

“Uh, I think I’ll have to sober up for this, dude.”

“I didn’t see alcohol on the menu, Ted, and we’ll have to spend our underground cigarettes on getting instruments!”

“I didn’t see a menu, Bill.”

“Worry not, my most-esteemed colleague. I’ll be with you all the way.” Bill poked his head over the edge of the bottom bunk to look up at Ted laying above him. “We’ll get through this, dude.”

“Ten years.”

“Yeah, ten years.”

“We’re in this together, Ted.”

These days, Ted would often push back on Bill’s optimism. Say the plan wouldn’t work. That Liz and Joanna wouldn’t see it that way. That little B and little T were just visiting out of obligation, or to pity them. “Yeah.”

The lights through their cell never really went out. All the better to dispel the nefarious darkness and any dark goings-on that could have gone-on within them. That is to say, looking up from his bottom straw-stuffed bunk, Bill could see Ted’s face.

It was getting paler, it was looking much older. But it was there. Above him.

“We’ll write the song, save the Princesses.”

“Little B and Little T will visit us more.”

“The other-us-es will never have to suffer through this.”

“Yeah,” Ted said again.

They could get through this.

They could write the song.

They could make sure they ensured sanitary, prison-floor-free soap.

“Bill,” Ted said one day, around day 3.

“Yeah Ted.”

He had had to take a shower sometime, on schedule. He had needed one before. Toilet water just didn’t do it after having puked all over that week’s five allocated uniforms. Lucky for Bill, after a few hours, you didn’t really smell it until they moved around too much. After holding Ted up to his chest most of last night, Bill was pretty sure he smelt like that too.

Ted-in-front-of-him was shaking. Bill wasn’t sure, after these last few days, if he could get any paler. Bill could tell, though, Ted’s skin was trying.

He stumbled over to Bill’s bed, legs like clockwork-wood. He fell face-first into Bill’s sheets.

“I figured out why you shouldn’t drop the soap,” he mumbled into Bill’s pillow. Bill could feel Ted’s shoulders twitching. A little bit of rocking. Ted didn’t rock very often or very much anymore. Unless he was about to collapse from being too drunk.

Bill knew this wasn’t that.

Bill knew Ted’s reaction couldn’t simply be caused by poor sanitation.

He pretended not to hear the shrill whistling as another prisoner passed their barred door.

Bill started to carefully pull his hand away from Ted’s shoulder. He probably didn’t want to be touched like that right now, he figured. Especially after—

“It’s okay, dude. You aren’t. I mean—” Ted mumbled.

Bill’s hand stopped retreating. He scratched his other under the sheets to pull the thin fabric over Ted’s shoulders.

“You can sleep down here tonight, Ted.”

Ted nodded, like he already knew it was okay. That Bill would be alright with him taking his bed. “But what about the uniform-angry-dudes, Bill?”

Just as a formality, “It’s only a couple more days of extra work, dude.”

“Oh.”

“How’s your headache?” Bill asked, as he’d been asking since T- 9 years, 365 days, 22 hours.

Ted was quiet.

Bill scrambled up into Ted’s bed, rummaged between the link-springs and scratchy sheets. He pulled out a rubber band.

The good thing about studying decades of world-music was, between he and Ted, they pretty much knew how to play everything. And how to create a musical instrument out of anything else. The rubber band had come binding up their name tags and “welcome packet.” He held one end between his teeth and began to pluck it with his fingernails, extending and shrinking the band for the notes.

The lights were still on, but the guards were reduced to night shift when Ted spoke out from under him.

“Whatsthatone?”

Bill pulled the slightly-damp band from between his teeth. Bill didn’t catch most of what Ted said, but he 1) knew Ted spoke, and 2) knew he was wondering—“It’s one of ours,” he replied. It was tradition. Even if only one of them worked on it, it was One of Theirs, “I’m naming it ‘Better Days.’”

“‘Better Days.’”

“I thought of something most-enlightening while I was playing, dude.”

“What is it, Bill?”

“With all the extra work, we’re going to get most-ripped, Ted.”

“Most-ripped?”

“Most-maximally jacked, Ted, my friend. Then we can drop the soap all we want, Ted.”

“They’ll have to give us their soap! I mean…their actual soap.”

“Actual soap,” Bill agreed, “And it’ll help give you something else to do besides drink, dude.”

“I really want a drink, Bill.”

“Maybe do some pushups instead, then, Ted.”

He heard Ted groan, “I hurt a lot, dude. Everywhere, Bill,” he whined.

He deserved to whine a bit. If you can’t whine when you’re 9 years and 362 days until the end of your sentence for breaking into Dave Grohl’s house and possibly sending your dad to Hell, Bill thought, when could you whine? It probably helped. At least as much as anything else in their most-vexing situation. “Maybe save them for tomorrow then. We’ll have plenty of time, Ted. Tomorrow I’ll do those pushups with you.”

“Excellent.”

The ceiling did not have the popcorn-bits on it, Bill observed. It was scraped clean of anything that might be mined and utilized. He stared at the white-painted concrete. And the nail-scraped little dicks and spikes around the scratched-out ‘WYLD STALLYNS’ with the shooting stars and the start of flaming horses’ heads.

“We’ll get the Princesses back,” Ted began whispering to his back,

“we’ll get to see Billie and Thea again,” Bill continued,

“They won’t have to visit us in prison, dude.”

“We’ll come up with the song.”

“And the other-us-es will save the world.”

Bill started to scratch in a mane. Ted came up with the figures, originally, but, over the years in the edges of paper and autograph lines, he’d perfected the dual-horses too.

“Bill?”

“Yeah Ted?”

“Does that mean, if we save the world by making The Song and giving it to our other-us-es, we’d never get arrested? And we’d kindof cease to ever have existed, dude?”

“Maybe, Idonno. Maybe we’d become them.”

“Bill?”

“Yeah Ted?”

“Wouldn’t that make us a paradox, dude?”

Bill started to think about it. About being a paradox. About being buff. About never-existing. About never-existing with Ted like this.

“Get back to playing!” Someone yelled from outside the bars.

“Yeah! Get back to playing, fuckers! That one was actually good!”

“Ow!”

Bill twitched. Ted was over him. He knew he wasn’t supposed to twitch. Ted had the needle, and they were only able to trade cigarettes and naughty magazines and workout tips for so much ink.

“Sorry Ted. Why are we doing this again?”

“You said it was so we would look cool. So that we wouldn’t forget, dude.”

“Yeah,” he tried not to twitch too much about the needle again.

“And you will look most-imposing, dude,” Ted said through his beard. The guards weren’t asking him anymore to shave it.

“Right. What do you want me to give you, dude?” He asked. Just to keep his mind off the needle. He had never been fond of needles, but if anyone was going to stab him a couple-thousand times and Bill be okay with it, it was Ted.

“I think,” Ted said with a steady hand, _ow, ow, ow,_ “Something for Elizabeth and Billie, so that I won’t forget” as if there was any chance for _Ted_ to forget “Then, Bill. I think…” _ow, ow, ow,_ “I think I want to be _Excellent_.”

They had both moved to the top bunk. It was winter and the prison company figured they could save on heating. And also save on sheets.

Nowadays, both of them ran cool.

Cons to working out, Bill figured. It was certainly-worth-it, though. And Ted, while he wasn’t exactly _soft_ anymore, he was _familiar_. Familiar, he had figured out when Big Tom was able to smuggle in an iPod with some AC/DC and Led Zeppelin, was all the more valuable in their situation. They didn’t want to forget _everything_ when they eventually had to go back outside. And, Ted figured, that included being able to share a bed with someone else.

They had done it Before (which was gaining the capital letter, like The Song, and the Princesses, and the Future), when Ted ended up spilling soda on his bed and it had taken them a few extra weeks to find a quiet night when Officer Logan (Sr., No-Longer-Recently Deceased in the Line of Duty) was out to collect Ted’s old mattress as a replacement.

They had done this before.

Ted pressed his big, scratchy beard against his shoulder. Along with something soft and damp.

He did it again.

Bill groaned a little bit.

Ted ran a rough hand over his smooth head. _Cue-ball_ , they’d taken to calling it. Better than the rushed-bald-spot-cover-job anyways. The thin, wispy cover-up hairs, Bill decided, were just embarrassing. Better he had been through that point in his life. He never liked the look of guys who looked like that. Or their personalities. They were normally most-heinous.

He felt the soft dampness again, moving up closer to his neck. Ted’s long nose bumped his jawbone.

He turned his head out to his other shoulder, jaw brushing up against Ted’s forehead, lengthening his neck. His mustache hairs must have scraped Ted’s forehead a bit.

Ted’s scratchy beard paused somewhere between his deltoid and neck.

He realized otherwise, he was completely still. They were both completely still.

Bill listened to their completely-normally-paced breathing. Except these days, he and Ted breathed more slowly than they used to until they were on (at least) their 200th push-up. He listened to their normal-sounding breathing. So, push-ups taken into account, his breaths were most-certainly racing. Like they had run twice around the compound being chased by the guards before breakfast.

Together.

They had always been delinquent together.

“Is this okay?” Bill felt Ted whisper into the quiet light. The less-burly key-dudes had passed not-five minutes ago and wouldn’t be back for another half-hour, and most-everyone-else were actively trying to sleep in the light of 3-am. Anyone else who happened to be up at this hour wouldn’t be in much position to say anything. They’d probably found themselves fumbling prison-regulated toiletries once or twice too. Not that Bill had before. Ted was still paused between his deltoid and neck, warm breaths spreading on his skin, rustling his most-bountiful beard.

Bill could feel himself still and breathing beside him.

“We need to get back to the Princesses and tell them we love them, Ted,” Bill whispered, “we love them, right?”

He reached his hand back against Ted’s stomach ( _Elizabeth + Billie Forever_ ). Bill could feel Ted’s lips curl up.

Anyone else would have misheard _therefore I don’t love you_. “Ted?”

“Yeah Bill. We love the Princesses, Bill,” one of Ted’s big hands came over Bill’s across his stomach, “And we love each other.”

“Of course.” Loving Ted wasn’t a question, or being loved, “you are most important to me, Ted.”

Bill finally turned his head. He looked into Ted’s big, sincere eyes. “You. Are most important to me too, Bill.”

In the end, Bill didn’t have to say _yes_. He just leaned closer.

It was in the harsh concrete light.

And Ted heard him.

Ted heard him as he groaned into his most-triumphant scratchy beard while the clanking guard-dudes and everyone else on all 6 levels pretended not to.

Except one dude.

“Can you two just stick to making music?! The music’s g-gooo-oh…T-To _h_ —Not with Bill & Ted above us— _T—o-o—mmm—b-bruhhh…they can hear us…_ ”

"They can hear us too, Bill," Ted's most-bountiful beard whispered into his collarbone.

"So? I'm not waiting another 4 years, 296 days, dude."

They leaned closer. 

— — —

In the hard light of 4:30, “Will we do this in 15 years, Bill?”

“If we do this right, Ted, we won’t be in prison in 15 years. You and I, my most esteemed colleague,” Bill said, running his fingers through Ted’s long hair, “might not exist and be replaced by our most-victorious younger selves.”

“Bogus.”

“most-flagitious,” Bill whispered, even though the other-thems would have saved the world. And they wouldn’t have had to go to prison or lose 10 years of their lives at all. Ted, Bill noticed, smelt like sweat and prison-regulation soap.

“If we do exist,” Ted continued.

“We’ll talk to Liz and Joanna. We want everyone to be happy.”

“They do too.”

“Most-certainly,” Bill took another languorous breath in, “I would be most-honored to share a couch with you together, Ted.”

They could hear the next shift of guards screaming and banging on the bars on levels below, slowly working their way up to their level.

Ted rolled off the unprotected edge to his feet. “Bill?” He said from the concrete floor.

“Yeah Ted?”

“Let’s work on that Song,” they listened to the cacophony of a couple-hundred men arising before the sun, “I think we got a band, dude.”

Ted extended his hand.

Bill rolled off the bunk and took it.

— — —

5 years, 69 days.

They could do this.

**Author's Note:**

> Content Warnings:  
> Rape/Non-con isn't on-screen, but it's heavily implied.  
> F-slur and a couple of cut-off slurs.  
> And Cops. Just, cops. Doing their job.
> 
> Background Notes:  
> Title taken from Van Halen's "Right Now".  
> Here's the link to Wyld Stallyn's entire discography (though they didn't do Death's): https://screenrant.com/bill-ted-3-face-music-cameos/  
> Here's a close-up picture of the tattoos I used for reference: https://www.cheatsheet.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Keanu-Reeves-and-Alex-Winter-as-prisoners-1200x789.jpg
> 
> Author's note: I'm not sure if I've balanced the language effectively in this one. I know I've dipped my toe in some sensitive topics, and it's made to be a bit uncomfortable. And a couple of phrases do double-duty as themes/tags. If it's too jarring, please let me know at https://timetravelingsherlockian.tumblr.com/ or in the comments. I'll see how the piece might be revised to create a clearer balance.
> 
> I have comments moderated on this one, so it might take a couple of days for your comments to show up. I promise to approve anything that isn't hateful.


End file.
